Gold medal winning Club member Russell Millner was our Zoom speaker for the evening on Wednesday 4th November when we were in for a real treat, with Russell taking us along on a fascinating journey from the frozen Arctic to the scorching wilderness plains.
Family of Bears on Baffin by Russell Millner
The vistas and wildlife he saw on his travels were stunning and Russell was hugely knowledgeable about everything he’d captured in his superb images. The time flew by and I for one was enthralled from start to finish. Our thanks to Russell for an entertaining and informative presentation.
Next week our guest speaker is Trevor Davenport with his talk on ‘Nature far and near’, including Yellowstone and the Sefton coast. Guests are welcome for a small fee – please see our Membership page for details.
Our first set subject Club competition of the new season took place via Zoom on Wednesday 28th October and was judged by commercial photographer Joanne Withers. The evening was split into colour and monochrome sections with two leagues – Club for beginners & intermediate, and Advanced for more experienced photographers.
It was fascinating to see different club members’ interpretation of the brief, with virtually all genres of photography represented over the evening. It was also heartening to have such a high level of participation in the competition.
The Advanced Mono section scored well with the judge, with four images being awarded the top mark of 20 points: Barbed Wire at Sachenhauzen Concentration Camp by Russell Millner Forgotten Friend by Dylan Reynolds Skull by Simon Raven & Old Micrometer by Jeff Bagnall, with warm congratulations to Jeff who scooped the title of overall winner 🙂.
Barbed Wire at Sachnhauzen Concentration Camp by Russell Millner
Forgotten Friend by Dylan Reynolds
Skull by Simon Raven
Old Micrometer by Jeff Bagnall
The Advanced colour section also had four images scoring 20 points: Going to Seed by Dave Nelson Morris Minor by Jeff Bagnall Broken Pencil by Dylan Reynolds & Sunflower also by Dylan Reynolds Dylan scored a hat-trick of twenty pointers on the night and also bagged the title of overall winner of the advanced colour competition. Apparently, Joanne’s cheque is in the post 😆.
Going to seed by Dave Nelson
Broken Pencil by Dylan Reynolds
Morris Minor by Jeff Bagnall
Sunflower by Dylan Reynolds
There was a clear winner in the Club mono competition. Big congratulations to Ann Dallaway with her image of ‘Shavings’.
Shavings By Ann Dallaway
The Club colour section, however, was hard fought with no less than five pictures scoring top marks: Trashed TukTuk by Alvina Labsvirs Old Lime Kiln by Phil Drayton Ghost House by Elaine Elrick All Coiled up also by Elaine Elrick & The Old Farmhouse by Ann Dallaway Well done again to Ann, who pipped everyone to the post with her award of overall Club colour winner 🙂.
Ghost House by Elaine Elrick
All coiled up by Elaine Elrick
Trashed Tuktuk by Alvina Labsvirs
Old Lime Kiln by Phil Drayton
The Old Farmhouse by Ann Dallaway
Club member Russell Millner is our speaker for the next Zoom Club meeting on Wednesday 4th November with his talk on ‘Photography over 50’. Fifty what, though, is the question. Fifty quid? Fifty frames per second? Fifty shades of grey? Join us as a guest to find out! Details on our membership page.
In a change to the advertised event, our next Club Zoom meeting will be on the use of editing software to enhance our photographs.
The evening will start with Club member, and recent gold medal winner, Russell Millner demonstrating how he edits his images using Lightroom.
Next, Jeff Bagnall will talk us through how to make non destructive edits to our pictures using Adobe Camera RAW (ACR).
Then the evening will round off with Dylan Reynolds, who will show us how he achieves razor sharp images with the technique of focus stacking.
There is something for everyone in this informative evening! If you would like to join us for this Zoom tutorial please see our Membership page and click the ‘Attend as a guest’ button. It is also never too late to become a member, with access to our Club YouTube channel, helpful membership pages and competitions. We look forward to seeing you 😊.
Award winning Club member Amy Bateman shared her passion for farming & photography via Zoom on Wednesday 14th October when we were treated to some wonderfully evocative images of life on Amy’s upland farm near Kendal and the stunning surrounding landscape.
Amy’s love for her family, her animals and the area in which she lives were contained in every photograph and it was a delight to share in her journey from beginner photographer to nationwide acclaim. Our thanks go to Amy for a hugely enjoyable evening.
Next week there is a change from our advertised programme, with the subject for the evening to be confirmed at a later date.
We welcome new members or if you’d like to be a guest just for the evening you will find details on our membership page.
Judging for the 2020 L&CPU Interim Annual Novice Cup took place via zoom on Sunday 11th October. It is difficult to define what is a novice photographer, but it is generally considered as somebody who hasn’t competed in a lot of national/international competitions, who doesn’t hold photographic distinctions, or who hasn’t been in a club very long. Many of our members qualify as a novice and I’m delighted to say that several took courage in both hands and entered this regional Federation competition.
There were two sections, open and nature, with each photographer allowed to enter up to 4 images in each section. The Novice Cup is traditionally a Club competition and usually 6-8 images per Club are allowed to be entered, however due to Covid the rules for this year were changed and individuals entered under their own steam although there was still a Club award for both sections.
The nature section was judged first from 10.30am-12.30am and the standard for a novice competition was exceptionally high. I am therefore absolutely thrilled that the Gold medal for best nature PDI went to club member Russell Millner for his image depicting a ‘Family of Bears on Baffin’ 😃. The accolades didn’t stop there, either, as Russell was also awarded a Commended for his image ‘Polar Bear Resting’. Big congratulations to Russell on his success!
Judging for the open section began at 1.30pm and finished at 3.30pm. To those of us watching, the scoring seemed a little lower than in the nature section despite some really strong images so we were thrilled when club member Maureen Smith was Commended for her photograph of the ‘Imperial War Museum, Salford’. This is Maureen’s second award in L&CPU annual competitions this year and a great achievement on her first entry into Federation events 😀.
Everyone who entered the competition should be receiving their scores directly from the L&CPU shortly.
As I mentioned earlier, this is traditionally a Club competition and Kendal PC came 5th overall which is brilliant! Well done to all the members who entered and helped the Club achieve such a great result 😊.
We are a talented Club and I hope members’ successes this year will inspire others to have a go at regional and national competitions and to dip their toe in the water of International Salons, such as those run by FIAP, the PSA and BPE. More details can be found on how to enter salons in the Members’ section of our website.
On Wednesday 7th October the Club spent a captivating Zoom evening with guest speaker Stewart Wood who shared his passion for macro photography, in particular Jumping spiders.
I admit I’d never heard of Jumping spiders and was expecting something enormous and scary like a Tarantula, but most were only a few millimetres in size and, as an arachnophobe I can’t believe I’m going to say this, they were really quite cute!
As well as being treated to Stewart’s amazing close up images, he also talked us through his macro technique covering everything from lenses, to lighting, to post processing and even discussed keeping Jumping spiders as pets. Our thanks to Stewart for a really informative night and we look forward to his talk on water droplet photography in the future.
Our next Zoom meeting is in the company of Club member Amy Bateman, who shares her life of ‘Farming & Photography’. Amy is a multi-award winning and exhibited photographer, British Life Photographer of the Year 2019 and is a current Sony Alpha Creator. I hope you can all join us via Zoom for what promises to be an intimate and evocative view of life on a Cumbrian upland farm.
We welcome new members or if you’d like to be a guest just for the evening you will find details on our membership page.
Our first Club competition of the new season took place via Zoom on Wednesday 30th September and was judged by North Fylde Photographic Society. The evening was split into colour and monochrome sections with two leagues – Club for beginners & intermediate, and Advanced for more experienced photographers.
Members of North Fylde had previously spent an evening viewing our images and scores were a group consensus. Apparently there had been lively discussions with sometimes polarizing opinions but the Club had been impressed with the quality of our images, particularly in the monochrome section.
Paul King CPAGB and Dave Bibby CPAGB EFIAP BPE3* represented North Fylde and passed along the Club’s comments during an entertaining evening. Critique was positive and helpful with some really good tips on improving our pictures. It was particularly nice to see new members entering their photographs, which we all know from experience is terrifying the first time you do it!
Congratulations to Alvina Labsvirs who received the top score of 20 points for ‘Kingfisher’ in the Club colour section. Alvina also scored 19 points for ‘Night Watchman’, alongside Elaine Elrick’s ‘Passing Through’.
Alvina continued her winning streak in the Club monochrome section, scoring 20 points for ‘Fishing’, with Elaine Elrick’s ‘Night Reflections’ receiving 19 points. There were some cracking images in the club section, well done all!
Fishing by Alvina Labsvirs
Night Reflections by Elaine Elrick
In the Advanced league, congratulations go to Jo Knight who was awarded the top score of 20 points for two images, ‘Life Behind Bars’ & ‘Painted Lady on Thistle’ in the Colour section, while 19 points were awarded to both Dave Nelson for ‘Fell Ponies’ and Russell Milner for ‘Polar Bear Resting Before The Next Swim’.
In the Advanced Monochrome section, Jo was awarded another 20 points for her ‘Swaledale Sheep’ sharing joint first place with Gavin Lowe’s brilliantly titled ‘The Big Wobbly Thing’, with 19 points being shared by Dave Nelson for ‘Allium Red Mohican’ and Dylan Reynolds for ‘Lambretta in Mono’.
Our next event on Wednesday 7th October is a talk by Stewart Wood on macro photography, in particular jumping spiders. Extreme macro is a difficult technical subject and I’m sure we’ll all learn a lot, even if the arachnophobes amongst us will be watching from behind a cushion 😱
All are welcome to attend this Zoom event. It’s never too late to become a member of the club, or if you’d like to be a guest just for the evening you will find details on our membership page.
Club member Jo Knight treated us to a “brilliant”, “fun”, “inspiring” and “thoroughly enjoyable” evening via Zoom on Wednesday 23rd September. She kicked off with advice on how to use layers and masks in Photoshop, then went on to demonstrate two popular plug-ins, the results of which impressively took 30 years off her age – if only we could all do that in real life!
Our next club evening on Wednesday 30th September is our first competition of the new season, with an Open theme. Our images have already been assessed by North Fylde Photographic Society and representatives from North Fylde will give us their verdict and scores live via Zoom.
This is a great opportunity to see over 80 images in both colour and monochrome produced by club members with skills ranging from beginner, through intermediate to more advanced workers.
All are welcome to attend. It’s never too late to become a member of the club, or if you’d like to be a guest just for the evening you will find details on our membership page.
We look forward to seeing everyone next Wednesday for what promises to be an interesting and entertaining night!
Our 2020/21 season kicked off on 16th September with an inspiring Zoom talk from Laurie Campbell. Laurie is a fine art nature photographer based in Northern Ireland and a member of the successful Catchlight Camera Club.
Laurie turns ordinary images into stunning fine art pictures with her use of textures which she says “covers up a multitude of sins!”. Despite admitting to lacking confidence and being incredibly self effacing, Laurie presented a wonderful evening of creative images which left us eager to try her techniques on our own photographs.
Our thanks go to Laurie, and also to Keswick Photographic Society with whom we shared the night.
Our next Club event is via Zoom on Wednesday 23rd September, with member Jo Knight AFIAP DPAGB BPE1* QPSA discussing layers and masks in Photoshop and her favourite editing tips and tricks.
Responding to requests from our recent members’ questionnaire, she will also demonstrate two popular plug-ins and the ways in which they can be used to dramatically, but simply, enhance our images.
Non members are welcome to join us for the evening as a guest for a small fee. Please visit the Membership page of our website to register. We look forward to seeing everyone next week!
After we had to abruptly end our last Club season early due to lockdown, we are delighted to announce that our new season starts on Wednesday 16th September, running through until 28th April 2021. We meet at 7.30pm each Wednesday, with a 4 week break in December for Christmas & New Year. Unfortunately for now, however, due to Covid-19 restrictions we will not be meeting in person at our usual Castle Street venue. This situation will be reviewed at the end of the year.
Instead, members have been meeting via Zoom as a trial during our summer break which has proved to be popular and successful so we will be continuing our programme of events online. This includes speakers, competitions, workshops, editing advice, terrible lighting, dodgy backgrounds and plenty of banter! Here are a few of the motley crew on one of our summer Zoom meetings:
There is the opportunity to ask questions or have a chat with other members at the beginning and end of each Zoom meeting. During competitions and demonstrations, however, members’ sound will be automatically muted so as not to distract the judge or speaker if your doorbell rings or your dog starts barking 😉.
If you are thinking of joining Kendal Photography Club we realize it can be daunting to come along to a club where you don’t know anyone, and even more so to join in a Zoom meeting. But we were all new once too and are confident that whatever your area of photographic interest, experience or level of skill, the club will provide a great focus for your photography.
Don’t worry if you’ve never used Zoom before – it’s been a learning curve for most of us. You will need either a phone, tablet, ipad, laptop or computer with a webcam and microphone (they usually come built-in). Download either the FREE Zoom app from the play store on your phone/tablet, or download Zoom for laptops and desktops here (choose Zoom Client for Meetings). The software will install automatically. Each week, you will receive an email from the Club with a link to our meeting – simply click the link, making sure you choose to share your video and audio when prompted.
Please either email a committee member, comment on this blog post, get in touch via Facebook or use our website Contact form if you have any problems or questions. If you’re interested in joining Kendal Photography Club, either as a member or guest, visit our Membership page for details.
We look forward to seeing old and new members alike 😊.
Kendal Photography Club 